a) I emerged from a dream last night with the strong feeling that we should call our initiative: Doctors of Art or similar. I can explain my thinking here in more depth (and I accept that dream-cathartic-breakthroughs are usually bad ones) but for now imagine you knew nothing of our concept and you heard something about an Art Surgery. Most likely you might assume it was some Arts Council, a-n or similar supported workshop to help young artists, 'emerging artists' (not that there's anything wrong with that but the term is aimed at people who are looking for mutual {or not so mutual} support) or local artists to think about their work or practice bla blaa, blaaa. We are dealing with artefacts, things, not people. It doesn't sharply enough get the point across. Something like Doctors of Art or Doctors of Art Clinic does. It contains it all: the academic question, the amusing link with medicine etc.
Friday, 18 December 2009
Laughter is the Best Medicine
b) It is said that Laughter is the Best Medicine (credit to a Sarah May of East Sussex for this link with our concept). Perhaps some of the art works we are presented with warrant this response. Whether paintings themselves can laugh or not I don't know. Either way I was thinking of contacting experienced comedian Brenda Gilhooly and asking for her input. Should I?
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The Three Gilhoolys? Now that really would be funny.
ReplyDeleteI still prefer The Art Surgery, but we could certainly append Doctors of Art or some such, for clarification. The Art Surgery defines the place (and links with 'Doctors' surgery' which is already named). Furthermore, I assume neither of us imagines that we might be attracting passing trade (because clearly we won't) so we need to make our publicity concise and clear, then people will already know what they're getting upon arrival. The Art Surgery just sounds better - more enigmatic, contradictory even - whereas Doctors' of Art sounds a bit perfunctory.
We're already in a surgery. We don't have to push the point. I must go and think.
ReplyDeleteHow can we be certain about not attracting attention of passers by. That would be desirable no?
What I meant was that we're not relying on passing trade. It's very unlikely that we're going to attract many people who don't already know about the event. We need to think about creating the best possible image for this thing in advance. Anyway, I've been thinking about the possibility of having projections running in the evenings - of images, 'operations', etc, possibly documentation of what's been taking place. Would also be good to organize satellite events - talks, discussions, etc - perhaps invite academics?
ReplyDeleteCould invite or Skype in our friend from Paris Sorbonne. Some screens, or projections might be good but it opens up a bag of technical complexity. Potentially this diverts our attentions from the crux. Personally (now) I prefer the idea of leaving a snapshot of some sort between activity but perhaps we could light 'beautifully' instead? Through that glass light, projection could be excellent though. This works at Grand Parade and I'm thinking about your work with lighting at Phoenix last year. Definitely I think this will be better if we keep things simple and subtract from, instead of adding too much. also in terms of getting the point across Art Surgery may not do it: as I say more likely to be overlooked as the kind of thing that already goes on. I disagree with statement "It's very unlikely that we're going to attract many people who don't already know about the event". Word of mouth, passing trade as well as ordinary promotion will be important. Direct contact too. A good idea spreads like wildfire. Yes though, we're not intending for this to work based on passing trade alone.
ReplyDeleteAre your paintigs sick? Worried about how good (or well) they look (or are)? Visit the Doctors of Art now! Experinced in Aesthetics bla blaaa, Scanners blaaa, blaaa. We can Operate Immediately blaaa blaaaa. Visit the Art Surgery!
People walking past who just happen to be carrying pictures? You see my point. I like the blurb btw - perhaps we should look at some Bupa adverts...
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